


Welcome Home

by zacharybosch



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Choking, Gen, Murder, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, That's about it tbh, honestly i intended this to be super smutty and that just didn't happen, i will try harder next time, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 10:49:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5453960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zacharybosch/pseuds/zacharybosch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Are you going to kill them?"</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>One breath, two, hot against Hannibal's face. And then Will's voice, low, quiet:</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"Yes."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome Home

**Author's Note:**

> so i've just read pretty much the entirety of the 'bottom hannibal' tag here on ao3 and i FULLY INTENDED for this fic to be just more of the same thing, smutty smut with lots of smut (and obviously bottom hannibal because, hell yeah).  
> anyway it totally didn't turn out like that at all. i will try to do the buttsex next time. also this is my first fic in like 10 years, i honestly never thought i'd write again (and tbh, the stuff i wrote when i was 14 is enough to put anyone off for life) but i guess i've just been having a lot of hannibal-related emotions recently and i need to let them out.
> 
> this hasn't been beta-read or anything, i just wrote it today at work (i know, i'm bad, whatever) so excuse any glaring mistakes. i tried to catch them all!

Will had been restless all night, fighting with the sheets coiling round his legs, starting at every creak of the old house, never fully succumbing to sleep. They had been in this house for weeks, laying low, regrouping. They had healed, mostly, but Will himself had not found any peace. He was expecting at any moment for the front door of the remote little house to be kicked in, for bright lights and harsh shouts and heavy cuffs. Or, at the very least, for whoever owned the place to finally pay a visit and find them squatting there. He felt constantly on edge, jumpy, like there was a wolf sniffing at his heels. Hannibal moved quietly around his jagged edges and calmly bided his time.

Every morning he thought about leaving, and every evening he found himself sat at the small dinner table as Hannibal laid a plate before him. He knew the other man would make no attempt to stop him leaving, and he knew this was because Hannibal wanted him to make his own choice to stay over and over again, to bind the two men together ever more tightly.

Eventually Will got up, heading out of his bedroom and across the hall to the bathroom for a moment's respite from his snarling, uneasy half-sleep. As his hand reached out to flick on the bathroom light he heard a noise, the faintest scuff of soft shoes on wooden floors, that made his hand freeze and his heart thump in his throat. His head filled with a deafening, rushing noise, a million thoughts churning and boiling over and clarifying themselves into two simple facts: Someone was here. They had been found.

Withdrawing his hand from the light switch, he moved as quickly and quietly as he could towards Hannibal's room, sure by now that his heart was thumping loud enough to be heard throughout the house. Hannibal's door was ajar, as always, and pushing it open Will could just make out the faint ghosting outline of the man asleep in his bed, curled away from the door, one arm flung out.

Hannibal, already wide awake, heard Will enter his room, as he'd heard him leave his own room and approach the bathroom, as he'd heard the intruder when they first slid open the kitchen window. Will's hand, hesitant, touched lightly on his shoulder. He leaned in close to whisper in his ear.

"Hannibal, there's someone in the house."

This was the moment Hannibal had been waiting for, an opportunity for Will to fully commit to actively being here, in this life with him, instead of just merely stopping himself from leaving. He turned his head to meet Will's eyes, barely there in the darkness.

"Are you going to kill them?"

One breath, two, hot against Hannibal's face. And then Will's voice, low, quiet:

"Yes."

Hannibal felt the cool stirring of air on his body as Will abruptly turned and left the room, padding on silent feet along the hallway to the top of the stairs. He waited for several minutes before getting out of bed himself, contemplating the sounds of struggle downstairs: the occasional gasping shout, the frequent thumps of heavy impact, the eventual silence. As much as he wanted to partake in this kill, he knew it was something Will had to do alone. Neither of them had killed since Dolarhyde; Will had not even broached the subject beyond a few heavy-handed, misplaced words, late at night before slinking off to bed. Hannibal could see how Will still fought with himself, even now, even after he had thrown himself with wild, beautiful abandon into Dolarhyde's murder. So Hannibal would sit on those nights, patient and quiet, listening to whatever Will could manage to spit out, and piecing together in his own mind what Will would need to help him fully embrace this side of himself.

He'd worked it out some days ago: Will needed his own kill, separate from Hannibal, separate from the self-defense excuses of the FBI, to know that his hands moved of their own accord and weren't just reacting to machinations set in place by someone else. He needed to know that he wasn't being manipulated into murdering, that this was his own true self, his own design. The intruder in their house could be with the FBI, could be the owner of the place, could be anyone; what mattered was that they had come here, at this time, and Will had decided of his own volition to murder them.

Hannibal stopped at the top of the stairs and surveyed the scene below him: Will, straddling the chest of a heavyset, middle-aged man, arms locked straight and hands clamped white-knuckle tight around his neck. He could see the change happening in Will, see the last shred of hesitation fall away as the intruder's feeble clutchings at Will's hands eventually stopped and the breath left his body for good. And there he was, finally; come into his own, clear-eyed, clear-headed, come home. Hannibal felt a rush of warmth in his stomach as he descended the stairs, forcing himself to take the steps slowly, calmly. Will stood as Hannibal took the last few steps, not turning to greet the older man but anticipating the his touch.

Will felt it on the back of his neck, the soft pads of Hannibal's fingers. He leant his head back as the grip became firm, reassuring, possessive.

"Thank-you, Hannibal."

"For what?" He knew what Will meant, but he wanted him to say it out loud. Wanted to hear the calm certainty in his voice.

"For allowing me to see myself. For allowing me to become myself."

Hannibal moved to embrace him fully. "Welcome home, Will. I have been waiting for you."

\---

The next day, Will didn't speak much, but the quality of his silence was different. Before, it had been nervous, twitchy, like a firework waiting to go off. Now, as Hannibal sat across from him at the dinner table, he observed Will's silence as a meditation, gathering his thoughts in to himself before letting them go one by one to float into the quiet of the stream.


End file.
